Milo Yiannopoulos resigns from Breitbart News

Embattled conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos announced on Tuesday his resignation from Breitbart News, where he was a senior editor.

“I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues’ important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately,” Yiannopoulos said in a press release. “This decision is mine alone.”

Yiannopoulos addressed his resignation at a press conference in lower Manhattan Tuesday afternoon, arguing that, while he believes the tapes that led to his resignation were deceptively edited, he was “certainly guilty of imprecise language.

“To repeat: I do not support child abuse,” Yiannopoulos added. “I am sorry to other abuse victims who may have interpreted my statements as flippant.”

His book, “Dangerous,” which was to be published by Simon & Schuster before the company dropped the Breitbart editor on Monday, will be released independently, with 10 percent of proceeds to a child abuse charity.

Outside of the space where the presser is being held, a small group of protesters held signs and chanted, while inside, outlets like Reuters and Fox News set up camera crews to capture the action.

Yiannopoulos’ comments created tension within Breitbart, with some staffers uncomfortable with how slow Breitbart leadership was to respond to the controversy surrounding their employee and how little they communicated with staff throughout the weekend. Some threatened to leave if Yiannopoulos stayed. Despite his resignation, some staffers still feel that the latest controversy to engulf the company was a bridge too far.

“Milo Yiannopoulos’s bold voice has sparked much-needed debate on important cultural topics confronting universities, the LGBTQ community, the press, and the tech industry,” a statement from Breitbart said. “Milo notified us this morning of his decision to resign as editor of Breitbart Tech and we accepted his resignation.”

At the press conference, Yiannopoulos said the Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow “has been nothing supportive” and would “keep it confidential” about their conversations and whether Breitbart asked him to resign or whether he offered it himself. Yiannopoulos blamed the media for the controversy calling it a “cynical media witch hunt,” a sentiment also expressed by Marlow on Breitbart’s radio show on Tuesday morning.

“But let’s be clear what is happening here. This is a cynical media witch hunt from people who don’t care about children. They care about destroying me and my career, and by extension my allies,” he said. “They know that although I made some outrageous statements, I’ve never actually done anything wrong. These videos have been out there for more than a year. The media held this story back because they don’t care about victims, they only care about bringing me down. They will fail.”

Charles Gasparino at Fox Business Network reported that Breitbart leadership had to determine how much traffic Yiannopoulos brought in versus the possible business losses they’d suffer from advertisers pulling out.

“He would be a business albatross if he stayed,” Gasparino said on air.

Yiannopoulos, who joined Breitbart as technology editor in 2015, has come under fire in recent days after the emergence of a tape that shows him advocating for sexual relationships between “younger boys and older men.”

He announced at his press conference that he plans to start a new media venture in the coming weeks.

“My full focus is now going to be on entertaining and educating everyone, left, right and otherwise. If you want to brand or stereotype me, good luck with that,” Yiannopoulos said. “America has a colossal free speech problem, I’m proud to be a warrior for free speech.”

Yiannopoulos is a leading figure of the alt-right movement and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump. He has made a career out of offending liberals and has always weathered past controversies. But the emergence of his comments on pedophilia has prompted his conservative allies to turn on him, precipitating a rapid fall from grace.